Watchers
by s0thathappened
Summary: A collection of one-shots with the Watchers, and their issues with boundaries


1

Penryn watched the clock on the nightstand tick.

5:28. She had woken up at 5:26 in the morning, but technically her day didn't start until 5:30.

At 5:30, she was Penryn Young - leader amongst men, fixer of problems she had no idea how to solve, and savior of/traitor to humankind depending on who she was dealing with.

But that was future Penryn. Penryn of 5:28 a.m. would savor those two minutes of leisure in her warm, wonderful bed.

An arm slipped around her waist, dragging her against a hard, warm body. Tingles went down her spine as that hand slipped under her shirt to trace lazy, slow patterns up her torso.

"Morning." She felt a kiss press right below her ear. She smiled.

"Hi, Dee," she said. "Where's Dum, you sexy thing?"

Raffe bit her ear. His hand, which had sneaked up over her breast, pinched her nipple.

"Such impudence." He nuzzled her neck. "Why do I even put up with you?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Commander," she said. She gasped as he dragged the nail of his thumb lightly over her sensitive breasts, creating a thin line of fire while the rest was left aching with want. She arched her back to rub against his hard-on. "How can I earn your forgiveness?"

She felt him smile against her shoulder.

"I have some ideas. Let's take a late morning and I'll show you."

Penryn peeked at the clock.

5:31.

Damn it.

Sighing, she eased away from him and tugged away his hand. She turned to face him.

Damn it all over again. Raffe was already incredibly, ridiculously attractive (which rarely admitted to out loud because quite frankly it was the last thing his ego needed). But morning Raffe...that was a particularly favorite of hers. Mussed black hair, hooded eyes, voice rough from sleep, and utterly relaxed-perfectly imperfect. Just looking at him was enough to set off butterflies in her stomach.

Focus. Focus focus focus.

"Sorry." She smiled apologetically and kissed him. "Duty calls. I have to go with Thermo and Dr. Kalik to deal with the solar panels. I'll see you at dinner?"

Her feet had barely touched the ground before she found herself swept back into bed. Raffe hovered over, caging her in by planting his legs on either side of her knees and pinning her hands up above her head with one of his own.

"Your defense needs work."

Penryn arched a brow. "You attacked when my back was turned. Cheater."

"Bad habit from my Daughter of Man. She's a dirty fighter." He smirked.

He was totally getting off on this. That was annoying. But so was she. Which was far, far more annoying.

"I'm concerned about you, Penryn."

This should be good. "Is that so?"

"I'm worried that I've been neglecting you."

"Neglecting me?"

"Of course. You're so busy, but you still have needs. I don't think I've been doing my part to address them."

"Oh, it's my needs you're worried about. Hmm." She cocked her head and gave him wide, innocent eyes. "You're so selfless."

"I'm always thinking of you." His free hand toyed with the top button of her night shirt.

"Clearly."

"This issue demands my immediate attention obviously," he said seriously. Three buttons down.

"Yes. Obviously."

"I'll need to be extremely thorough." Her top was unbuttoned down to the waist. He brushed the bare skin between her breasts with the back of his knuckles, fingertips grazing the soft flesh still covered with cloth. Her body arched to his touch. "It will take a lot of time. Probably all day."

"And definitely, ah, all morning?" His hand was trailing down her torso. The thought of where it might be going made it difficult to form complete sentences.

"Definitely."

"And if I don't have all...all, um…" As his hand slipped under her waistband and his finger slipped easily into her wet, aching core, every single coherent thought left her brain.

"All what? Morning?" His tone was still light, but that evil smirk was gone. He was watching her with such intensity that it set a fire under her skin.

She bit back a moan as she squirmed against his hand and nodded.

"I think I can change your mind." He leaned forward to bite her lower lip. His ragged breath brushed against her cheek, his blatant need only amplifying her own.

"In fact, I promise I'll have you begging."

Penryn was ready to start begging right at that very moment if there hadn't been a knock followed by their door swinging wide open.

Thermo, headphones dangling around his neck, walked in. "Hey, Penryn, do you think we should-oh fuck!"

Raffe immediately bolted up, wings spreading to shield Penryn from Thermo's view. Penryn shoved him off her and sent him crashing to the floor as she threw the covers over herself.

All of which was made absolutely moot as Thermo had immediately fled, only returning with his back turned to stammer out an apology and shut the door behind him.

"Thermo, wait, no don't wait, gahhhhh…."

Penryn ducked under the bed sheets and covered her face with her hands.

Maybe if she never made eye contact with another person again, this burning sense of humiliation would dial down to something gentler. Like intense embarrassment.

"Ow."

Penryn peeked from her new temple of shame. A disgruntled Raffe shook his head at her from the ground and hauled himself up.

"Serves me right for trying to be gallant," he grumbled. He tried to tug the sheets off from over her head. "Come out from under there."

"No, I'm never going to be able to show my face to anyone anywhere ever again. This is my home now."

"Don't be stupid. It's not anything he hasn't seen before."

She emerged from the covers to punch his arm.

"Actually, it was something that no one but you has seen before," she snapped. She huffed when she saw him to try to stifle a smirk and punched him again.

"It's not like we were doing anything wrong," he said. "Look at the bright side. It looks like your morning is clear now."

"Oh. My. God. How are you still horny? Wait, no, I know why. The only thing more massive than your ego is your libido."

"I wasn't hearing any complaints a few minutes ago-"

"That was then. This is now." She climbed out of bed with as much dignity she could muster half-dressed. "And now the mood is gone. It's dead. Let's throw some dirt over it and call it a day."

She ignored Raffe's eyeroll and marched off to the bathroom, locking it behind her with an audible click.

Twenty minutes later, she went down to meet with Dr. Kalik. She ran into Thermo on the way.

"Hello, Penryn."

"Good morning, Thermo."

Neither of them could look each other in the eye.

They both tried to break the awkward silence at the same time.

"I am so sorry-"

"I swear I didn't see anything-"

They both stopped. Penryn resisted the urge to go find a big rock and crawl under it.

Thermo sucked in a breath. "You have nothing to apologize for. I was listening to the Sunny Walkman you gave me so I didn't hear anything amiss and simply barged into your room when I had no business doing. I'm deeply sorry that I caused you any embarrassment."

"Sony Walkman," she corrected automatically. She cursed herself for giving him that old cassette player-out of all the Watchers, he was the most fascinated by human tech. "And thanks, Thermo. I really appreciate you saying that. Hey...let's not tell the other Watchers about this, okay?"

He nodded. "Definitely not."

"Thanks, Thermo."

* * *

2

"What are you doing?"

"Iznf et obfvious?" Penryn winced and took out the screwdriver from between her teeth. She placed the ceiling light fixture back in its setting and started screwing it back in. "I'm changing the lightbulb."

"And clearly trying to crack your head on the floor," Raffe said. She was standing precariously close to the edge of a chair next to the kitchen counter, on her toes, because she was so damn short. A lightbulb, presumably the busted one, was rolling back and forth on the counter.

He caught it before it fell to the floor and tossed it into the trash. He resisted the urge to reach out for her legs to steady her, but moved in range to catch her just in case.

She looked down at him for a second and grinned. He rolled his eyes. Trust Penryn to find him standing in front of her to break her nearly inevitable fall hilarious.

"Done." She tucked the screwdriver into her back pocket and reached over to flip on the switch. "Let there be light."

"Isn't that how this whole mess with humans got started?"

"Hardy-har-har."

"I'm hilarious. Just accept it. Can you please come down now?"

"I don't know." Penryn cocked her head and placed her hands on her hips. She smiled. "I kind of like being taller than you. It's a nice change of pace."

Raffe raised a brow. "Is that so?"

"How does it feel being the shorter one? Is your neck cramping from looking up all the time? Do your feet hurt from having to stand on your toes when you want to kiss?"

"How does it feel being the tall one? Are you constantly stooping down for a freakishly short Daughter of Man?"

"Who are you calling freakishly short, Mr. I-bump-my-head-on-the-shower-head-every -time? I'm the normal one."

"You keep telling yourself that." He wrapped his arms around her legs and lifted her up. He slid her down so that he could hold her around the waist and their faces were nose to nose. "How about this arrangement? Good enough for you?"

"Hm, I guess it'll have to do." She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He rolled his eyes but kissed her anyway.

"You two are so sweet. It's absolutely disgusting." They broke apart to find Cyclone strolling into the kitchen. "Will you two kindly refrain from defiling this room? People eat in here, you know."

"You really have lost all sense of chain of command, haven't you?" Raffe said.

"Not at all, sir. I'm just don't want to be exposed to filth when I'm looking for Oros."

"Oreos," corrected Penryn. Raffe tried to set her down but she wound her legs around his waist. "Cyclone, if you don't want a front row seat to filth, get out of here now. Raffe and I have some defiling to do."

"Degenerates. Heathens." But he fled the room.

Raffe looked at Penryn. "That was different from the usual."

"It gets old when he does it for the hundredth time. He used to be so much more creative with his heckling."

"I'll be sure to tell him to brush up on it," he said dryly. "Now what were you saying about defiling?"

"Actually, it's something I should really show you…"

* * *

3

If someone asked Penryn Young what she thought about Howler, she would probably say that he has nothing better to do than mess with her. If someone asked Howler about this, he would say that he has plenty of things to do, but screwing with Maggot Slayer made for some damn fine entertainment.

Was crying 'HARLOT!' every time he caught the two lovebirds so much as kiss a dick move? Absolutely. But it was worth seeing her scramble away, red-faced and embarrassed.

"It's completely harmless, boss," he'd explained to Raffe. "If she can deal with Pit monsters, she can take some heckling."

"And if I knocked some manners into you?"

"Well, sir, then I'd wonder what your Daughter of Man would say about you going behind her back to fight her battles?" He gave his commander an evil smile. "I don't think she's the type to be flattered by people protecting her virtue."

Raffe had kicked his ass anyway, on principle, but the commander didn't bring it up again.

And Maggot Slayer gave as good as she got. After, a particularly blurry night of drinking, he had woken up to find "harlot" scribbled on his face. It had taken two days for it to wash off.

Howler had retaliated by sprinkling worms on her bed. Pretty sure the bastards up in heaven heard her shrieking.

In return, she spiked his shampoo to turn his hair orange for a week.

He flipped her car upside down.

She jerry-rigged timers to dog whistles and hid them in his quarters.

He let a goat loose in her apartment.

And so their war spiraled out of control. All in good fun, of course, but both of them would have rather set themselves on fire before surrendering.

Then came that little incident where something actually did catch on fire.

Howler called it a joke that got out of hand. Hawk called it recklessly trying to burn a building to the ground.

Thus, a truce was called, although Howler was all for rekindling the hostilities. He didn't want Maggot Slayer to lose her edge. Daughters of Men had to be tough if they wanted to stick with angels.

But other times...he sometimes gave her a break. Like for her habit of spending the last parts of her evening on the roof to wait for the commander to come back. On particularly busy days of dealing with leftover angel and human nonsense, the two could miss seeing each other at all.

Maggot Slayer had made it a point to wait for his return from night patrol. Of course, she'd always end up falling asleep and the commander would carry her down through the Watcher's floor to their own apartment below.

One night they had skipped this little ritual. Howler had gone up to the roof to check, wondering how he was going to keep his mouth shut if he found them being frisky.

The two were curled up against the stairway wall outside, under a moonless starscape. Raffe was asleep, with Penryn nestled in his arms and his chin tucked protectively over her head. Her fist rested over his heart while her other hand intertwined with Raffe's on her lap.

The tableau was so personal, so intimate, he felt like a voyeur.

This is not for me to see. He slipped back inside as quietly as he could and made his way back downstairs. He pushed back against the hollow feeling in his chest. His own Daughter of Man was long gone, but he could still feel like brush of her hand against his as if it were a phantom limb.

Not for me to see, but for us to protect. We won't let history repeat itself.


End file.
